


Endless Skies

by Tarlan



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 14:11:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10664268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: The last thing Logan recalled was drowning, and memories of a world and time line full of regrets that no longer existed. Now the possibilities were as endless as the skies.





	Endless Skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> Written for **Fandom 5K 2017**

_The first time ever I saw your face  
I thought the sun rose in your eyes  
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave  
To the dark and the endless skies my love  
To the dark and the endless skies  
\- **Roberta Flack - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face**_

***

It felt surreal. The last thing he remembered was drowning; the water filling his lungs, his brain cells dying and reviving, over, and over, and over. Later Charles would tell him he'd been the water for just an hour at most and yet it had seemed more like a lifetime before his eyes opened and he discovered he was back in his room at the school. The Golden Oldie playing softly in the background was the same song he had awoken to back in 1973 and he wondered now if that was some cosmic joke. A quick check showed he had programmed it so maybe it was some flash of memory the other version of him had held onto through all these years. Or maybe the powerful, almost melancholy song held another meaning now. Confused and a little groggy, he felt almost drunk as he walked through the corridors, seeing the strangely familiar faces of students conflicting with a knowledge of not knowing many of them at all. In his time line these students were gone, missing or killed by the Sentinels.

Two sets of memories began to clash in his mind, one where the world was destroyed by Trask's Sentinels, and another... This present.

He saw Bobby and Rogue talking quietly at the end of the hallway, smiling at him before walking off together. He saw Storm, so happy to see her alive and whole and smiling as she spoke to some students. Such a contrast from those final years of the war where the toll of seeing so many die so needlessly had left a sadness etched so deep he had not seen her smile in years, and she had a beautiful smile; a smile that lit up a room. He carried on down the stairs, still groggy from the effects of the mind transfer and the change in the timeline, and saw....

"Jean."

"Hey, Logan. You okay?"

His heart had skipped a beat upon seeing her standing framed in the doorway to Charles's office. He had loved her once, perhaps he still did, but memories of the Dark Phoenix with her terrifying powers and her loss of empathy for those around her gripped him harder. She looked at him in confusion and some consternation when he reached out to touch her face, but he needed to ensure she was not just a dream or part of a new nightmare. If she was still the Jean he had first known then he feared for the future, of what she might become one day, aware most of his fear of her revolved around Scott. She had destroyed Scott, though he hadn't truly understood the magnitude of what had happened until much later, watching helplessly as she killed Charles. At that moment his thoughts had gone back to the shores of Lake Alkali, standing among the floating rocks, dust, and debris, with Scott's visor in his hand, and then came the cold realization she had torn Scott apart at the molecular level, just as she was tearing Charles apart.

Scott was gone, and the only reason Charles was-had still been with them was because of a clone body, one his mind had fled to when he realized he could not reach past the darkness of the Phoenix to stop her, knowing she was going to destroy him. Scott hadn't had that luxury, and he hadn't had Logan's regenerative powers that had withstood the sheer destructive force of her mind when she attacked him on Alcatraz.

Someone grabbed his forearm, but it was if his thoughts had taken form for when he turned he saw....

"Whoa! Easy, pal," Scott murmured.

It took everything Logan possessed to keep his emotions in check as he stared into a face he thought he'd never see again. It was easier to fall back into old patterns between them, making some stupid quip about some things never changing just to deflect, but he couldn't resist dropping his hand on Scott's shoulder. Strong and broad, he could feel the warmth of Scott's living, breathing presence bleeding through the material, and Logan's resolve to remain indifferent broke.

"Good to see you, Scott," he practically choked out, earning a bewildered look and a noncommittal response as Scott brushed past him.

Logan had to resist the urge to watch him go. Fortunately his attention was caught by his first sight of Charles looking both older and younger than in his conflicting memories. He had been granted his wish to wake up in a new time line, one where the world hadn't been brought to its knees by Trask's legacy, but he thought it would be the same year he had left - 2023. If he had to guess from the faces of all those he had seen since waking then the date was closer to 2010, perhaps just a few years on from the terrible events surrounding the deaths of Scott and Jean... and for a time, Charles too. His memories of the decade from 1973 to 1983 were still vague and broken for the most part in both time lines, but Logan could feel the Adamantium in his body, bonding to his bones and claws. It seemed the changes he had brought about in 1973 hadn't stopped him from falling into Stryker's hands, yet having been sent back into his original, unchanged body he could see the one good thing to come out of that horrific encounter; the Adamantium.

With his focus now on Charles, his friend for so many years, he barely noticed Jean parting, but Charles had been there with him in 1973 and had spoken with his own counterpart from the apocalyptic future using Logan as a conduit. Charles had known what was at stake in Trask's terrible future, and what might still come to pass if they were not vigilant. Logan closed the door behind him as he stepped forward, recalling those early days here at the school when Charles told him he wasn't ready to learn about his past. It occurred to him now Charles might have been waiting for this day, when the Logan who had his mind sent back into the past finally caught back up with the new present, except that was a different Charles. The confusion between the events of two different pasts was making his head ache.

"I must admit I wasn't expecting... _you_ for a few more years yet, my friend," Charles added with a warm smile.

"Not what I was expecting either," he replied wryly.

"Tell me everything you remember," Charles requested gently, and it was almost a relief to open his mind and allow Charles to step inside and walk through those original memories with him, knowing Charles would respect his privacy and not push into memories surrounded by any walls he feebly erected. As long as he kept those walls up.

Although he had two sets of warring memories, the set belonging to the Logan of this time line felt displaced, as if he was watching someone's home movies; familiarity without true reference, context, or emotional connection. Yet so many events mirrored his own experiences in the early years following his escape from Stryker, though with one subtle difference. He recalled his escape from Alkali Lake, charging through the corridors, striking out at soldiers, slashing, and stabbing like an animal as they emptied bullets into him. Like a wild animal, a wolverine. In the new Logan's memories he had found the way out and froze, sensing someone behind him and he'd stopped, ready to carry on fighting so he could escape.

An impression of red hair, and of warm thoughts breaking through some of the barriers and conditioning placed in his mind, giving him back his name and a few memories, and with it a little sanity.

Jean had been there.

Here in this time line he had never lost Scott, and he had never been forced to kill Jean to save them all. Yet uppermost in his thoughts was the moment when the damn broke, with the jet engines failing and Jean taking it upon herself to use her slowly strengthening powers to save them, evolving into the Dark Phoenix in the process. When they found her again, the other Charles had both hoped Jean could hold back the darkness inside her and return to them but Logan had known long before she started to destroy everything around her on Alcatraz, friend and foe alike, that she was lost to them. Lost to him. On Alcatraz her thoughts had pierced through his mental shields like a dagger through tissue paper, tearing into him. The Dark Phoenix had revealed Scott's secrets to him even as she tore through the walls of denial surrounding his own, forcing him to witness all the missed opportunities between him and Scott. She had twisted through his memories, only stopping when she found the numbness of his grief for Scott and Charles, and learned she was the cause of both, caught by a single memory, of a smile. 

She remembered Scott's smile, and for just a moment she was Jean again. He had let her go with a cry of rage and grief when she begged him to kill her before the Dark Phoenix consumed her completely.

Yet even after all of this Logan hadn't truly realized what he had lost until he stood in front of the memorial stones placed in the school grounds and felt his heart breaking for Scott more than for Charles or even Jean. It had taken him time to acknowledge the depth of his grief and he had spent a few decades since then working through his feelings for Scott, full of regrets for words spoken and not spoken, for a risk he'd not taken because he hadn't truly known himself in those days, still seeking to clear the hazy memories of his past.

Charles pulled back, obviously troubled by what he had seen of the Dark Phoenix and Scott in Logan's memories.

"She couldn't be saved," Logan stated softly.

Charles turned away from Logan's words to look out the window. "Jean was... is the most powerful mutant I'd ever met. Class Five. And when I found her as a child I considered placing walls around her abilities, afraid of her, wanting to control her." He turned back with a bitter smile. "Perhaps that was my mistake in the other time line. In not trusting in her to find her own way."

"Perhaps," but Logan was not entirely convinced. 

"Logan, in this time line Stryker was arrested in 1983 and his base at Alkali Lake fully abandoned. As for Jean..." he trailed off, smiling, and Logan waited for him to finish his words. "In that same year Jean took full control of her abilities. She became the Phoenix and saved the world from a powerful mutant bent on its destruction."

Logan had no memory of that event, likely because he was little more than an animal at the time. Hurt and broken, searching for a place to hide and lick his wounds - mental rather than physical. Perhaps time was like a river, diverted off its course by some events, such as stopping Mystique from killing Trask in 1973, and simply flowing around others like small rocks or pebbles dropped into the water's path. In both time lines he'd drifted from place to place after 1983 but had eventually ended up in a cold town in Alaska where he met Rogue, took pity on her, and brought her to Charles.

"You have much to discover, my old friend. A whole new history of the X-Men, but I sense you need some time to go through your new memories first." Charles smiled. "I'll ask Storm if she wouldn't mind covering your lessons for today."

Logan nodded. Everything had changed, and new possibilities lay in front of him.

****

Scott strode away from the Professor's office with a casual call to Jean, promising to catch up with her later, but his thoughts were in a turmoil.

He was no longer a sexually confused teenager, having Jean to thank for that for as the Phoenix she couldn't help picking up on surface thoughts, and though she would normally keep those thoughts to herself, apparently Scott had been driving her insane. Years ago she had pointed out that liking guys as much as girls was pretty normal compared to the mutations that set them apart from most of humanity. Not that he found many opportunities to explore that other side of himself over the intervening years as most people wanted someone who could look into their eyes when they made love, not fear they'd dislodge his visor and end up cremated.

He was used to Logan looking at him as if he was a rival for Jean's affection but there had been something different about him today. Logan's usual exchanges with him were sarcastic at best but his greeting today had been... genuine. Logan truly had been happy to see him, almost joyous, elated even, and that wasn't how they treated each other. Colleagues, brothers-in-arms, fighting on the same side as X-Men, but not really friends. Sure Logan took his bike and his car without asking just to mess with him, and although Scott made a fuss he wasn't actually that bothered. In fact he kind of liked the idea of Logan handling his prized possessions and had even wondered what it might be like to ride with him... and not as X-Men. He snarled inwardly because Jean would be falling over herself laughing at him if she'd been here right now. She had never deliberately stolen into his mind to capture his thoughts on Logan as, apparently, she hadn't needed to, saying it was all out there in the open for anyone with eyes to see. Instead she had laughingly accused him and Logan of dancing around each other, which was ridiculous.

It was so lucky he loved her, and so lucky she loved him back, willing to put up with what she called his _juvenile reaction_ towards Logan.

But that was what best friends were for, he thought, and Jean was his best friend from the moment Hank McCoy handed him a pair of ruby-quartz glasses and he regained his sight. Of course it helped that she'd needed a friend too back then.

A few years back they had toyed with the idea of a relationship but it had fizzled out not long after Logan stepped back into their lives, barely changed in over twenty years. Yeah, he recalled the wild, desperate man at Alkali Lake back in 1983, recalling memories of corded muscle and smooth skin, half-naked and bloodied, adding to a teenage boy's sexual confusion. Scott had often wondered if Logan's adoration for Jean was simply a projection onto the person who had given him hope and freedom after years of torture, torment, and abuse at Stryker's hand. So far Scott had managed to hide how much he wished Logan would look at him that way, half-wondering if he was fooling himself into believing he had gained that look today.

But it wasn't just him.

The way Logan had stared at Jean today was subtly different too, with the usual love-sick puppy look replaced by a strange mixture of desire, regret, and fear. From her expression Jean had sensed the change in him too but as easy as it was for her to slide into someone's mind and read their thoughts, she preferred to respect the privacy of others. Scott paused, tensing from a sudden concern that maybe this wasn't Logan at all but someone pretending to be him; a shapeshifter like Raven. Except both Jean and Charles would have sensed an intruder and warned him if that was the case. Still, Scott figured it couldn't hurt to hang around outside the Professor's office in case he was needed.

An hour passed before the door opened and Logan stepped out. From the strangely joyous look so clearly written across Logan's face for a split second before he schooled his features back to a mask of indifference, it was obvious Scott had caught him off guard again.

"Scott."

"Logan."

"You have a problem?"

"Do you?"

Logan pulled a fat cigar out of his pocket and put it between his lips, but made no attempt to light it. Instead he seemed to chew on it thoughtfully for a moment before walking away, leaving Scott more confused than ever, and he hated that. Scott strode after him and grabbed his arm, spinning Logan back around to face him. This time it was Logan who looked down at Scott's hand on his arm but he made no attempt to shrug it off. Beneath his hand Scott could feel the corded muscles overlaying the Adamantium bonded to Logan's bones. When Logan looked back up at him he was frowning, but behind the frown was something else and for once Scott wished he was a mind reader like Jean so he didn't have to wonder what thoughts were going through Logan's head. He knew what he wanted but wishful thinking had never paid off before and though Scott had the courage to charge into battle with all manner of mutants, humans or even robots, he wasn't as brave with his heart.

"Team Practice is at five. Don't be late," he ordered, dropping Logan's arm and walking away.

He could feel the burn of Logan's stare on his back, as powerful as any beam from his own eyes.

****

Logan watched as Scott strode away, almost wishing he would turn and see the naked desire Logan had for him, but just because the Dark Phoenix had told him Scott had buried feelings for him in the original timeline, it didn't mean Scott wanted him here. He'd be a fool to think otherwise, especially with Jean alive and well in this time line. Shaking off his feelings Logan carried on back towards his room, needing time to organize the thoughts spinning inside his head.

With just a few minutes to go before five Logan was tempted to blow off the practice session but he'd spent the whole day feeling prickly in his own skin and knew what he needed was a good old fashioned fight to clear away the cobwebs and give him back his balance. Scott gave him a slightly irritated look when he turned up on time but only because he'd yet to change into his X-Men uniform, and that would make him late, whereas Scott was already dressed and ready for action.

Scott in the old timeline barely looked in his direction when he changed but Logan noticed the surreptitious glances now and played to them, stretching and bunching muscle, and smirking when Scott looked away, a little flushed. Perhaps this version of Scott was more aware of his desires than the old Scott. The possibility thrilled him and he smirked openly as he finished zipping up his leather uniform and followed Scott to the practice room. The others were already waiting, looking a little impatient to start, so Logan rolled back his shoulders and cracked his neck from one side to the other.

"Let's knock a few heads together," he stated with a broad smile, letting his Adamantium covered blades snick out from between his knuckles.

Bobby grinned back and even Scott looked like he might crack a smile.

The holographic projection spread around them, taking them from the large plain room into a terrifying world of cities laid bare by the destructive power of giant robots; a world he knew all too well, sending a shiver down his spine. For a moment he was back there, fleeing with the others from one destroyed city to another as the remnants of humanity were herded into concentration camps like cattle for the slaughter while mutants, or anyone carrying the mutant gene was slain where they stood. They had made their last stand with the few others like them remaining, using Kitty Pryde's ability to send his consciousness back to the trigger point - the death of Trask at Mystique's hand. Logan had shied away from asking Charles if that future still existed in some other time stream as that would mean he had abandoned them to their fate, the only one to escape the horror other than in death.

"Get ready!" Scott shouted, and Logan watched as the simulation sent the first robot straight for them. He recalled his actions in the other time line, getting The Beast to hurl him towards the robot's head where he dismantled it with his claws, but Logan had grown a little wiser since then, understanding the need for this to be team work. Not that brute force didn't have its place. He stood back a little and watched the others, Scott especially, seeing the focused laser flash out as Scott adjusted his visor, slicing into the robot to expose its inner circuitry. Storm sent a shock of electricity through it while Bobby encased one heavily weaponized arm in ice, freezing the joint and the firing mechanism.

"You planning on joining in any time soon, Old Man," Scott yelled as he sliced another chunk off the robot.

"Sure kid," he retorted, "Once you've finished playing with your new toy," he added for good measure, knowing it would rile Scott.

A giant robot foot stomped down where Scott had been standing moments before; a little too close for comfort as far as Logan was concerned because these simulations were not just holographic projections. They had weight and substance, or in other words, the robot was real, built and programmed by Hank for team training exercises. Depending on the combatants, the robot could be programmed to react faster or slower, and its weapon beams dialed up or down to give anything between a mild buzz and a burning sensation if hit. As all those present were part of the main team, Hank had programmed it to the highest setting.

"My turn to show you how it's done," Logan yelled and he sprang forward with a battle cry, claws out, landing on its neck and shoulder. 

Logan tore into the robot, severing its cooling system to spill its robot equivalent of blood and sending circuitry flying in all directions, shorting the connection between its power supply and positronic brain. The lights died in its eyes as it froze before shutting down altogether. Logan turned to smirk at Scott, enjoying the way the other man smoldered with annoyance, but it was short lived.

Scott tensed. "Logan!" he yelled, hand flashing to the controls on his visor as he surged forward.

The red beam flashing above his head was his last sight before he was buried under the toppling robot.

He awoke in a world of pain, feeling his body trying to repair itself even as the weight of the robot continued to crush him. Logan activated his claws but his arms were pinned, making it impossible for him to slash at the metal around him. He could hear the low hum of Scott's laser vision dismantling the robot, and the sound of metal crashing as Hank grabbed the smaller chunks of machinery and cast them aside. Logan cried out in pain as the last chunk of metal was pulled off him, feeling his caved and broken ribs cracking back into shape and his almost liquefied organs rapidly healing his body. He wrapped his hand around a sharp bar of metal that had pierced through his shoulder, almost pinning him into the ground below but couldn't get enough purchase. Hank was straddling him, roughly pushing aside his fingers and grabbing the metal.

"On three... One..." He pulled hard and Logan screamed in agony.

"What happened to Two and Three?" he growled once he regained his breath, feeling the pain receding as his body repaired itself, the hole in his shoulder closing to leave unblemished skin.

By the time the last piece of the robot had been lifted away Logan was fully healed. Scott was standing over him so Logan reached out for an assist back onto his feet. For a moment Scott looked torn by indecision as if afraid to touch him, as with most anyone else it would have been wiser to have him checked over for injuries first but Logan had rarely worried about such things. Scott grabbed Logan's forearm, helping him to stand and watching as Logan shook off the last of the aches and pain, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck before looking down at his ruined suit. One leg was torn from mid-thigh to mid-calf, and the leather across his chest was shredded and covered in his blood. All the wounds had closed but with this much blood he knew he looked like roadkill. 

"Hope you have an endless supply of these," he quipped.

He could hear Scott ranting at him, about his stupidity, yadda yadda, and a suitable retort perched on the tip of his tongue as Logan prepared to throw back another quip to piss Scott off even more. The words died in his mouth because the visor and full-body uniform couldn't hide the way Scott's hands were shaking, or the emotional crack in his voice. Instead he waited patiently for Scott to run out of steam before stepping forward and pulling the man into his arms, feeling the automatic tension that suddenly deflated, just as it had in the jet that day in another time line when Jean died saving them. After a moment longer Scott's arms tightened around him, his head falling forward.

"You bastard," he murmured, words muffled against Logan's shoulder.

"Yeah. That's me," he replied, voice rough from lingering memories of pain, mental and physical, and both recent and from a distant, lost past.

He cleared his throat when they parted, daring any of the others to say anything, and was surprised to find smirks and smiles rather than shock. Storm brushed past them, smiling broadly as the holographic imaging switched off leaving the devastation of dissected robot parts strewn across the practice room floor. Hank stared around for a moment then shrugged, and Logan wondered if he still had the 'wonder kids' to help him blast away the debris and reconstruct the robot so the practice room could be set up again.

"Scott, wait!" Logan called out when Scott started walking away. "Jean?"

Scott looked at him as if he was more alien looking than The Beast, and shook his head. "After..." He looked back at the training room, but then sighed heavily. "You still want Jean? I won't stand in your way." He turned to carry on walking away and Logan grabbed his arm, spinning him back around.

"It's you I want, Scott, but I've seen what happens when Jean gets mad-."

"Why would Jean get mad? At this?" Scott indicated between them. "Jean's known how I felt about you for years, but you never gave any sign you wanted me... until today."

"Years?"

Scott didn't bother to respond but Logan had a flash of that old memory again, of escaping from Stryker's laboratory, bloodied and naked, attacking anything that moved like a cornered animal until... Red hair. Jean. Beside her was someone blue, but not Mystique or Beast. Nightcrawler? And a boy in dark glasses. Scott.

Logan had barely aged a day since 1983 but the boy was now a man, and it made him acutely aware of the passage of time and the fragility of life, of how quickly most people aged compared to him, leaving him watching them grow old and die while he aged at a far slower rate. He thought of Charles and how he had looked so young back in 1973 and so much older in 2023. Erik too. Thoughts of Erik brought back another memory. The other, older Erik from another time line had told him not to close off his heart for fear of losing others too soon, and of all of them Erik had lost most even before the death and destruction caused by Trask's Sentinel program. He'd witnessed the horror of the concentration camps long before the Sentinels herded what was left of humanity into the same killing grounds. History repeating itself over and over. This version of Erik learned that lesson far earlier in his life, not wasting the years that could be spent with Charles and Raven, helping mutants to come to terms with their powers, to not be afraid to let go.

Logan understood that lesson. He knew he acted rashly sometimes, perhaps even a little juvenile on occasion, but he was not a fool. He knew he had to seize the opportunity to live and love while it existed as everything or anyone could be snatched away in a moment of madness from some government agency or psychotic mutant, or even by just a simple accident such as a giant robot falling on top of them. It could have been Scott crushed under that robot rather than him, and Logan would have lived the rest of his life full of regret, just as he had in another time line.

This time he didn't falter, kissing Scott soundly, almost desperately, and Scott kissed him back.

***

**Epilog: One Month Later**

The familiar old love song played on softly as Logan lay in his bed with Scott a heavy but welcome weight lying across him. The visor was still firmly covering Scott's eyes as neither of them wanted to put his destructive laser power to the test against Logan's skin no matter how quickly he regenerated. Nor did he want their room demolished because he liked the way it was, having added a few small personal touches from both of them since they gave up pretending anyone actually cared they were sleeping together.

No one cared.

Earlier that day Logan had seen Scott's full face for the first time, courtesy of Jean's incredible powers. Scott had eyes a beautiful dark shade of blue, like the endless skies in the song.

Now he could hear the soft breathing as Scott slept peacefully on him, warm and sated, and he could feel Scott's heart beating a steady rhythm that seemed to match the beat of his own heart. He knew this couldn't last forever, that one day Scott would be gone along with all the friends surrounding them, but while it lasted he would sink his claws in deep, metaphorically speaking, and hold on tight.

_And the first time ever I lay with you  
I felt your heart so close to mine  
And I knew our joy would fill the earth  
And last 'till the end of time my love  
And it would last 'till the end of time  
\- **Roberta Flack - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face**_

END  
 


End file.
